Nerve Injury during ENT, Head and Neck Surgery has been a concerning issue for both patients and surgeons
By stimulating and directing all voluntary muscular movement, motor nerves perform a critical function. Cranial motor nerves from the brain control muscles in the head, face, and neck. At times, these nerves are hard to identify during surgery due to disease, a previous operation, or normal anatomical variations. Patients can suffer temporary or permanent damage if a nerve is irritated or injured.
For example, during skull-based surgery, the facial nerve is commonly exposed and at risk for injury. Since this nerve controls all movements and expressions of the face, damaging this nerve can have devastating physical and emotional results. Sometimes minor irritation or stretching of the facial nerve can lead to temporary or permanent symptoms of nerve damage, such as facial weakness, numbness, or twitching. Severing the facial nerve, although rare, causes facial paralysis that resembles the effects of a stroke.
Similarly, the recurrent laryngeal nerve, a branch of the vagus nerve, is one of the nerves at risk during neck dissections, including thyroid surgery. Damaging this nerve can severely impact an individual’s ability to speak, swallow, and aspirate.
Medtronic’s NIM system helps surgeons locate and identify the nerve, monitor, and control manipulation effects on the nerve, and confirm nerve integrity prior to completing the surgery.
We are proud to announce the first installation of the Medtronic NIM Neuro system in NCR at Mayom Hospital Gurugram under the patronage of Dr. Manish Prakash, Director of Ent and Head Neck Cancer Surgery.
As per Dr. Manish, the nerve monitoring system greatly improves surgeons' accuracy and speed especially in difficult scenarios, and can bring a lot of confidence-building safety for the patient.
